Given that he’s over 25 features deep into a remarkably diverse and prolific screen and stage career, it may be a surprise to learn that Prisoners marks Hugh Jackman’s first official visit to TIFF with a new movie to present. Looking typically dapper in a black blazer during an interview at the Shangri-La the day after the film’s Friday-night premiere, the garrulous Australian star seems pleased that the experience has lived up to his expectations.

Says Jackman, “I’d asked filmmakers and other people why they love the Toronto festival and they all say it’s the only one that genuinely melds the business with the fans. I felt that last night — it felt like a premiere at Times Square or Leicester Square in London. There were thousands of people, real fans. And they were going in to see the movie too!”

Jackman had more to say about the city’s role in his career and the demands of playing the desperate father of a missing child in Prisoners, a grim yet gripping thriller that marks the first Hollywood venture for Montreal director Denis Villeneuve.

You may be new to TIFF but your relationship with Toronto extends quite a bit further back, doesn’t it?

My first American film was shot here, which was X-Men. That time I’ll never forget because it was the last time I did a film when no one knew who the hell I was. That film changed everything for me. I was with my wife here and it was my first studio film and the first time I really got paid. I remember when the per diem would come in and the per diem was more money than I’d ever seen. We actually had to parcel it out before going back to L.A. because there’s a limit to how much cash we could take back. We’d keep it in drawers and go, “I don’t even know how to spend this!” I was tipping in restaurants like there was no tomorrow — I was making it rain!

Prisoners could hardly be mistaken for a superhero movie, especially with its discomfiting take on the morality of many of its characters’ actions. Do you think it may be a provocation for some viewers?

I think the trailers deliberately make it out to be more of a generic thriller and there are elements at the beginning of the film that make you think, “Oh, I know where this is going.” But it subverts that all the way along. All of a sudden it doesn’t feel so comfortable rooting for the characters you were rooting for. The movie revels in that moral ambiguity and that’s why it’s so powerful and why Denis is such a great director for this material. I read the script one or two years before Denis came along and loved it but I said, “I can’t sign on until I know who’ll direct this.” I wanted to make sure it was a person who could essentially make a drama in the clothing of a conventional thriller. In the wrong hands, all you’d notice is the outfit, know what I mean? And he just gave it the heart, the complexity and the layers of what the story speaks to.

Do you think it may be especially hard on parents? It certainly preys on very primal fears.

I’ve asked people who don’t have kids and they feel the same thing so I think it’s an elemental relationship. We’ve all been parents or been parented to different degrees so we all understand it. That’s why the Ariel Castro story will captivate a whole nation. Speaking as a parent myself, the movie is uncomfortable to watch. My wife watched it with me and she removed her hand from my hand as I was getting into some of the toughest scenes.

You’ve done all kinds of roles but not so many of your performances contain this level of intensity -- have there been many other times you’ve faced comparable demands?

When I did The Fountain with Darren Aronofsky, there was an intensity there but not as sustained. Funnily enough, my wife just reminded me that the very first film I did in Australia, Erskineville Kings, had a similar character. But it’s not every day when you get asked to play something as intense and raw as this. Let’s face it — after page 7 of the script, you’re in hell. And by the way, this was shooting during awards season so every weekend I was going off to some red carpet for Les Miserables to drink champagne and sing songs. I thought this would be a nightmare and I was going to ask to delay the shoot, but we’d already started so I thought, “I’ve just got to suck it up.” Weirdly, I think it worked in my favour. The shoot was so intense that I needed the release. Just going to hang out with other actors and talk about another film meant I didn’t have to stay there all the time, constantly worrying about what was coming up next.

As draining as it may have been, are you looking forward to doing more movies like Prisoners?

To do something that has to be that raw and emotional all the time, I certainly wouldn’t want to do back-to-back movies like this. But I did love the style of filmmaking and the fact we were slaves to the truth of it — we really bared the souls of these characters. Having a movie that resonates with people longer than the two-and-a-half hours they’re sitting there, that does turn me on and I’d love to do more of those. Like Movie 43! (He laughs.) That one resonates, particularly for my teenage children!

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